A collection of stories gathered by the Broward Stories Project Edited by Carol Quiroga

In 1998 students began interviewing senior citizens and tape-recording their stories. 1n 1999 a play was created from five of the stories collected titled “Stories From The ‘30s and ‘40s.” In 2000 it was performed throughout Broward County for over 3,000 students and senior citizens. This literary collection contains several of the stories from the interviews conducted during 1998 and 1999. What emerged from the student interviews of the senior citizens is a moving tapestry of life in America during the ‘30s and ‘40s. The stories, gathered from people from diverse regions, are held together by a common experience of community, caring and simplicity and depict a time marked by gracefulness and abundance, despite the Depression and widespread poverty. They serve as a moving testament to the American spirit of that time. Read more (PDF)

Sandra Clibanoff (PDF) I was born on April Fool’s Day, 1938, in Philadelphia, PA. I lived in a neighborhood called Wynnefield. Almost all the houses were attached, single-family homes. It was a very warm, inviting neighborhood. There was always a lot of activity and good neighbors - the whole neighborhood was like an extended family.

Alma Ford Collins (PDF) I grew up right here in Fort Lauderdale. I attended Dillard High School. At that time Dillard was where Walker Elementary is now, and it went from first grade through high school. I graduated in 1942.

Burton Greenfield (PDF) I was born in Chicago in 1931. I lived there until I was 14 and then moved to Miami. In Chicago I grew up in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood. One of the places I liked to hang out was the JPI – Jewish People’s Institute.

Hazel Kaufman-Pachtman (PDF) I was born in the Bronx in New York City in 1923. My father had his own business on Second Avenue on Manhattan’s east side. My parents moved a lot and always to a new neighborhood. My most memorable years were spent in Washington Heights where we lived for six years. I was twelve when we moved there from mid-Manhattan. Washington Heights on Manhattan’s upper west side is high above the Hudson River opposite the Palisades of New Jersey.

Franz Kreider (PDF) I was born in Lancaster, PA on a 100-acre farm. It was a dairy farm but we also grew corn, wheat and tobacco. When I was small we didn’t have electricity or plumbing -only candles and kerosene lights and a privy outside. When I was seven we got electricity and that was a great day. We lived far away from the town.

Marilyn Reid Kreider (PDF) I was born in Millford, Connecticut in 1935. It was a small town in New England about one mile from Long Island Sound. I remember during World War II we had a large victory garden in the lot across the street where we grew all kinds of vegetables. I used to have to work in the garden as one of my chores. There were a lot of woods around and so my friends and I used to play in the woods. We’d have performances that we created in the summer months and we’d invite the rest of the kids in the neighborhood and our parents to come.

Bernard Miller (PDF) I was born in the Bronx, in New York. I was the last of five children. My oldest sister was born in Europe. My father came to the United States alone, around 1904, and then my mother came in 1906. My father died in 1924, when I was two years old. We had a dog at the time and he died of a broken heart shortly after – he missed his master so!

Sylvia Ostrow (PDF) I was born in Nashville, Tennessee which was a lovely town with about 100,000 people. The school I went to for the middle grades was in a very old building. Actually my father had gone to the same school with the same principal. One day, which happened to be April Fool’s Day, l932, the school burnt down.

Ben Posner (PDF) I was born in 1914 in New York in the Catskill Mountains. My parents owned a farm up in the mountains so I grew up in the country. During the winter it used to be bitter cold.

Anne Sauve (PDF) I was born in 1910. Prohibition started around 1918. Theboys were about to come back from the service, from World War I, and man by the name of Volsted got this law passed throughCongress before the boys came home and could vote against it.

Manuela Stern (PDF) I was born in Vienna, Austria in 1933. Things that happen to you when you’re very young you only remember if they are out of the ordinary. There is one night that stands out in my memory. I used to go to my grandparents house every Friday evening. I used to sleep there, I guess my parents went out. I was very little. And then one Friday my parents came and picked us up and that was the Friday that the Nazis marched into Vienna, and they took us home.

Rita Warren (PDF) I was born in Brooklyn, New York . YEH BROOKLYN!! I was the youngest of seven children. Being the baby, I was spoiled rotten. While my older brothers and sisters had chores to do, I don’t remember ever doing any chores. With seven children and my mother and father that meant nine mouths to feed. My father couldn’t do it all himself. When my sisters and brothers got to be 12 or 13 their schooling ended. They had to go out and work and help contribute to the family.

Charles W. Wright (PDF) I was born in Georgia on April 12, 1924. My parents moved to Broward County in 1937. I grew up in a small town and there weren’t that many places for us to hang out. Sometimes we would go to the pool hall, but we were always supervised. Our parents had to know where we were. I used to read a lot because there wasn’t that much to do.